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How UX Directly Affects SEO Visibility in Ecommerce

This article is an extract from my soon to launch eCommerce Technical SEO course – it is part of the Ecommerce UX Module.

Whilst the core objective of SEO is to drive and attract visitors to your website/Ecommerce store from search engines; the baton is handed over to User Experience (UX) when visitors arrive. The core objective of UX is to create an atmosphere and experience that nudges visitors/shoppers (split by personas) to take specific actions (as defined in customer journeys); pique their interests by effectively meeting their needs and expectations; addressing their concerns; and finally converting them.

Perception is Reality

UX hinges on users’ perception of your website. Great UX means great user and in the case of ecommerce; great shopper perception, which leads to a purchase and return customers.

Whether you like to hear this or not: Google prefers to rank ‘higher quality’ websites; where ‘high quality’ may imply websites with a more expensive look and feel i.e. top retail brands with not only the budget but the ability to execute UX extremely well along with engaging content (visuals and the written word). Brands such as Made.com, MrPorter.com, Booking.com and Amazon.com.

It is important to note that they rate Pages and not Websites.
They deem a web page to be of high quality when:

The main content (MC) demonstrates expertise, talent, and/or skill

The website’s E-A-T, (an acronym for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) is high

The websites has a very good reputation on the topic of the page

In addition, the page and website should have most of the following:

A satisfying amount of website information, for example, About Us information, Contact or Customer Service information, etc.

Supplementary Content (SC) which contributes to a satisfying user experience on the page and website (buyers’ guides, customer reviews).

Functional page design which allows users to easily focus on Main Content (MC) and use Supplementary Content (SC) as desired.

A website which is well cared for and maintained.

Fake it Till You Make It

Can you make your store look 10X more expensive i.e. make a £5 million revenue store come across as a £50million brand?
More importantly, in way that demonstrates your store’s expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness?
In the context of ecommerce ‘expensive looking’ sites typically demonstrate most of the above guidelines. User experience (UX) is a core means of laying out and establishing a website’s quality. In ecommerce, safety and trust are important factors to quality.

Key Elements in Ecommerce UX for SEO Success

Here is a checklist of areas in Ecommerce UX that directly relate to SEO, you should pay special attention to:

Key Takeaway: Measure and Improve User Engagement metrics

Endeavour to increase visitors’ time on site, pages per visit and decrease bounce rate.

“Dwell-Time” is term first referenced on the Bing webmaster blog; it is an amalgam of bounce rate and time-on-site metrics – it is the way search engines measures how long it takes their users to return to their original Search Engine Result Page (SERP) after clicking on a result (and can only be accurately measured directly from the search engines’ own data).

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How UX Directly Affects SEO Visibility in Ecommerce

This article is an extract from my soon to launch eCommerce Technical SEO course – it is part of the Ecommerce UX Module.

Whilst the core objective of SEO is to drive and attract visitors to your website/Ecommerce store from search engines; the baton is handed over to User Experience (UX) when visitors arrive. The core objective of UX is to create an atmosphere and experience that nudges visitors/shoppers (split by personas) to take specific actions (as defined in customer journeys); pique their interests by effectively meeting their needs and expectations; addressing their concerns; and finally converting them.

Perception is Reality

UX hinges on users’ perception of your website. Great UX means great user and in the case of ecommerce; great shopper perception, which leads to a purchase and return customers.

Whether you like to hear this or not: Google prefers to rank ‘higher quality’ websites; where ‘high quality’ may imply websites with a more expensive look and feel i.e. top retail brands with not only the budget but the ability to execute UX extremely well along with engaging content (visuals and the written word). Brands such as Made.com, MrPorter.com, Booking.com and Amazon.com.

It is important to note that they rate Pages and not Websites.
They deem a web page to be of high quality when:

The main content (MC) demonstrates expertise, talent, and/or skill

The website’s E-A-T, (an acronym for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) is high

The websites has a very good reputation on the topic of the page

In addition, the page and website should have most of the following:

A satisfying amount of website information, for example, About Us information, Contact or Customer Service information, etc.

Supplementary Content (SC) which contributes to a satisfying user experience on the page and website (buyers’ guides, customer reviews).

Functional page design which allows users to easily focus on Main Content (MC) and use Supplementary Content (SC) as desired.

A website which is well cared for and maintained.

Fake it Till You Make It

Can you make your store look 10X more expensive i.e. make a £5 million revenue store come across as a £50million brand?
More importantly, in way that demonstrates your store’s expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness?
In the context of ecommerce ‘expensive looking’ sites typically demonstrate most of the above guidelines. User experience (UX) is a core means of laying out and establishing a website’s quality. In ecommerce, safety and trust are important factors to quality.

Key Elements in Ecommerce UX for SEO Success

Here is a checklist of areas in Ecommerce UX that directly relate to SEO, you should pay special attention to:

Key Takeaway: Measure and Improve User Engagement metrics

Endeavour to increase visitors’ time on site, pages per visit and decrease bounce rate.

“Dwell-Time” is term first referenced on the Bing webmaster blog; it is an amalgam of bounce rate and time-on-site metrics – it is the way search engines measures how long it takes their users to return to their original Search Engine Result Page (SERP) after clicking on a result (and can only be accurately measured directly from the search engines’ own data).